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Liz Woodhouse Liz Woodhouse, as seen by Richard Ball, Motor Pool, U. S. Embassy, Moscow Russia, late 1991/early 1992. (Hair isn't buzzed anymore. Glasses are the same. Still use the coat in winter - don't sleep under it very often anymore, though.)

Known on the newsgroups as just "Liz."

(Actually, better known as Liz, the Goddess of Paradox) (I didn't write that part... Of course, I didn't delete it either... <g>)


(Restarting after reading Denn's novella... )


Chapter 1: How Liz Was Prepped For Paradox

I was born in 1969. The next 17 years were mostly irrelevant as far as my relationship with Paradox is concerned. The only relevant bits are: I enjoyed math classes, I believe my Spanish classes were useful (I think knowing a foreign language helps one learn coding), and I think some time in there, I discovered logic problems were really entertaining...

During my senior year in high school, I took a programming class. We learned Basic on Apple IIc's (I think). All I remember is that it was fun (we wrote 'programs' to do neat things like drawing snowmen on the screen and playing music). Unfortunately, and as I recall, they didn't bother to teach us that one could do such things as a job...

When I graduated from high school, mom and dad got me an Epson 8088, with 640K of RAM and 2 5.25" floppies! <g> I also got a software package which included a word processor, spreadsheet (I think), and a database program (which I promptly used to catalog my 45s). However, it was a copy of WordPerfect® 4.2 that I'll credit for teaching me the most useful things I learned on that computer.

The next four years were equally irrelevant to my Paradox future. My ACT scores in math were high enough that I didn't have to take any math classes, so I spent those four years forgetting all the algebra and trig I learned in high school. Instead, I studied Spanish and Russian, and while I don't use either anymore, they proved useful in getting me started with Paradox...

[Side Note: Studied Russian because of my love for spy stories and desire to write spy novels. Took the job I'm about to describe for reasons which, knowing that, should be obvious...]

[Irrelevant-to-Paradox Side Note: I got a decent camera before going to Moscow, because, after all, you don't go that far and not take pictures...]

After four years of college (didn't graduate), I went to work as a driver at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia. Before long, I was put in charge of vehicle records. Previously, these existed on paper with some data in a 'word processor' on a Wang (as I recall). I immediately moved these records over to our lone DOS PC and WordPerfect.

Then, a little before my 1-year mark, I became assistant dispatcher at the same time as a new dispatcher took over from the previous one. Together we revamped the jobs, and in so doing decided life would be better if we didn't have to make up data for the financial reports, and the only way that would happen was if we dispatched on computer rather than with paper and pencil. So, we chatted with our boss who said 'we looked into that a few years ago, and there is no software for dispatching.' We returned to the office, sulked briefly, and then I informed my fellow dispatcher that all I needed was some database software, and we could make our own dispatching software. So, we called the embassy's MIS department and they installed a copy of dBASE for us. We made great progress with this, until we got stuck (I forget what the problem was). Of course, we called the MIS folk for help and as fate would have it, their dBASE expert was out, but their Paradox guru was in! And thus begins the fateful story of how Paradox chose me...

Chapter 2: How Paradox Chose Liz The First Time



Check out these articles written by Liz :
BDE Configuration Tips
Beyond Help: Breakpoints and the Debugger
Building Tables: Part 1: Files and Fields
Building Tables: Part 2: Validity Checks and Table Lookup
Building Tables: Part 3: Table Language, Table Level and Passwords
Building Tables: Part 4: Primary and Secondary Indices
Data Integrity Introduction
Do It Yourself Referential Integrity
Referential Integrity Introduction
Using ODBC Data Sources
Using the Microsoft TreeView Control in Paradox


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